"I don't accept their apology, … I want to know who forged these documents," said Galloway

LONDON, June 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Britain's staunch anti-war campaigner Labor MP George Galloway spurned Friday, June 20, an apology from a reputable U.S. paper admitting its documents claiming he had been on Saddam Hussein’s payroll were forgeries.

The Christian Science Monitor conceded that a story it ran on April 25, alleging Baghdad paid Galloway 10 million dollars (8.5 million euros) over a decade, was based on bogus documents.

"An extensive Monitor investigation has subsequently determined that the six papers... are, in fact, almost certainly forgeries," the paper wrote Friday.

"At the time we published these documents, we felt they were newsworthy and appeared credible, although we did explicitly state in our article that we could not guarantee their authenticity," said Monitor editor Paul Van Slambrouck.

"It is important to set the record straight. We are convinced the documents are bogus. We apologize to Galloway and to our readers."

No

However the Glasgow lawmaker refused to accept the apology and would push ahead with legal action.

"I don't accept their apology. A newspaper of their international standing should have conducted these basic checks on the authenticity of these documents before they published them and not more than two months afterwards," he was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.

He stressed he had been the victim of a conspiracy over widespread allegations he took millions of dollars from the deposed Iraqi regime to promote its interests in the west.

Galloway demanded British Prime Minister Tony Blair to personally look into the matter.

"I want to know who forged these documents,… I am calling on the prime minister, as head of the co-occupying power in Iraq, to investigate how this conspiracy came about," he said in a statement.

The chairman of Galloway's constituency Labor Party, Mark Craig, was quoted by the BBC News Online as saying the Monitor’s apology was a "vindication" of the MP.

The allegations against Galloway were first aired by Britain's Daily Telegraph on April 22, after it reported having found a memo in the Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad suggesting Galloway took a slice of oil earnings worth 375,000 pounds (539,000 euros, 587,500 dollars) a year.

Galloway dismissed the allegations, which shortly came after the end of the Iraq invasion, as "libelous" and said that he would instruct his lawyers to begin legal proceedings against the British paper.

"I never solicited nor received money from Iraq for our campaign against war and sanctions."

The Monitor joined hands in the campaign against him with documents it said were coming from the Special Security Section, run by Saddam's son Qusay.

It said that its reporter had obtained them via an Iraqi general, who said he had obtained them from a home once used by Qusay.

Galloway is currently suspended from the Labor Party over comments he made in an interview to an Arab television station branding Blair and U.S. President George Bush "wolves".

In an exclusive interview with IslamOnline.net on December 20, Galloway exhorted the Arab public opinion to stand up before another puppet president or corrupt king is installed in Iraq, cautioning that the wealth of Iraq will be devoured by foreign governments.